Avignon Papacy

The Avignon Papacy, also known as the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, was a period from 1309 to 1377 that saw seven successive French popes reside in Avignon in the Kingdom of Arles. The Avignon Papacy started when Pope Clement V was elected in 1309; he decided to stay in France rather than move to Rome in Italy, and the papacy resided in an enclave of the Papal States in what is now southern France. The popes were all puppets of the Kingdom of France, but Pope Gregory XI decided to return to Rome in 1377, a year before his death. The death of Pope Gregory led to more trouble, however, as the election of Pope Urban VI led to the Western Schism, which divided Christianity until 1417, when the Council of Constance deposed the remaining papal claimants and elected Pope Martin V as the new pope.